Pillars of Eternity - Thoughts & Impressions

Fargol said:

Odd. I started a new game as a Fighter, and alone (same char level, same difficulty level) I easily beat that bear in the cave. Whereas before, when I was not playing a Fighter, I got turned into rugs to decorate the bear's cave.

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This is my impression too. However, while it sounds unbalanced at the first look, it is completely ok for a party-based game. I assume you are supposed to come back with a party.

Archangel said:

Compare it to Bg1.

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Yep, or Icewind Dale. You think their development process costed $4mil?

Ferris_bg said:

Yep, or Icewind Dale. You think their development process costed $4mil?

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Um yes....this isn't bulgaria where they are making the game?

So many people lose fact of difference in cost....not to mention it has to be looked at as when the other games were made and the difference of costs at that time.

This game is purely awesome. Pathfinding doesn't bother me since I send my guys to different areas....

I love you can hire people for your party basically making new characters...so cool.

ChaosTheory said:

Yes.

However, the toughest, earliest enemy in the game is… A bear. As luck would have it.

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Yeah, I thought the same. I was playing as a rogue as usual and tried the bear a few times. My stealth wasn't good enough to get in a sneak attack, but once I almost had it using the damage boost blinding it gave me. Came back with friends later and did him good.

Alas, combat sometimes is a big clusterfuck... I find it too fast in general. It's also very annoying that pausing resets slow mode. Otherwise I would play combat with slow mode on and then pause when neccessary. Maybe they patch in that option...

I came back for the bear, with reinforcements.

Fluent, your enthusiasm is contagious. It seeps between your every word. And I'll admit that while I was excited for this game before, it was your enthusiasm in the week leading up to release that really got me pumped. And it wasn't a letdown. It's every bit as good as you promised.

Thank you so much for your video!

Also came back for the bear with a party. This is as it should be. I also came back with a grappling hook for that one climbing spot in the same area. Now carrying one and a pry bar as standard gear. Glad these things were included in the game, which does a lot of little things right.

My one complaint is the idiot-proof attribute system, which has been watered down into obscurity and insignificance.

Regarding combat, I would recommend ticking the option for automatic slowdown in the auto-pause options. (So glad they included this option.) I thought I would attempt to recreate TB combat by forcing a pause every few seconds, but I haven't. My prefered method is the auto slowdown and liberal use of the space bar.

You are very welcome, Aubrielle! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I had fun making it.

I wish I had the urge to make more, but right now I'm really wishing on my new computer to get built. Unfortunately, this all coincides with the release of PoE and I'm really sort of stuck in between here. But ah well, good things will happen and hopefully something breaks soon..

Thanks for watching and for the comment! Cheers!

Capt. Huggy Face said:

Also came back for the bear with a party. This is as it should be. I also came back with a grappling hook for that one climbing spot in the same area. Now carrying one and a pry bar as standard gear. Glad these things were included in the game, which does a lot of little things right.

My one complaint is the idiot-proof attribute system, which has been watered down into obscurity and insignificance.

Regarding combat, I would recommend ticking the option for automatic slowdown in the auto-pause options. I thought I would attempt to recreate TB combat by forcing a pause every few seconds, but I haven't. My prefered method is the auto slowdown and liberal use of the space bar.

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Spoiler info! I missed that climb are....haha

I don't mind the character system at all.... So many skills...I can't make any money so far...I did hire a level 1 and level 2 hireling....elf ranger, and godlike cleric(so cool.)

Another tip, ALWAYS explore the map in stealth (scouting) mode and double speed. You will find secret things in many places. Only disable scouting once you've uncovered the whole map.

wolfing said:

Another tip, ALWAYS explore the map in stealth (scouting) mode and double speed. You will find secret things in many places. Only disable scouting once you've uncovered the whole map.

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Can you go back and do that if you already explored?

Yes you can, things which are hidden don't disappear.

Corwin said:

Yes you can, things which are hidden don't disappear.

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Cool, I rmember in past games if you didn't find something on a map(random encounter like things) you didn't ever see them.

The game is quite enjoyable but it still has some pretty annoying bugs.
Don´t double click to put on armor, it removes your passive abilities.
Be careful with summoned weapons, they can block your weaponslots permanently.
These problems will probably be patched with patch 1.

A fun game thus far. Still not thrilled by the skill system though.

An obvious issue is the filters on the stores; they don't hide the filtered items, just disable them. Thus you still end up scrolling through a big long list.

Been playing quite a bit and loving it. Playing on hard and the combat is quite fun - more fun than it was for me when I played any of the actual Infinity Engine games. That might just be that I'm older and slightly more patient though, but I'm liking it. I'm actually enjoying going through the endless paths too. I was expecting it to feel like a slog, but they've managed to make each of the floors fairly unique - different little backstories and different enemies on each floor.

Also I think it speaks well for Obsidian that I haven't had a single bug or crash yet. I know they're in there lurking somewhere, but so far it's been clean in that regard.

The game's got good writing and good potential especially regarding a sequel. Needs a patch or three to fix the combat, too fast and your guys go down too quick. Slow mode is what the normal combat speed needs to be. Very hard to control the battlefield with teleporting enemies and moving around can be difficult if your not careful. Engagement complicates things but I feel like they've almost got it working right in some situations but for other enemies it can quickly turn chaotic. I'm enjoying it but annoyed that wizard spells have odd restrictions against casting outside of combat.

The thing I enjoyed about Baldurs Gate is the way that your abilities allowed you to approach combat and non-combat situations in a variety of creative ways. I remember in bg1 I used Otiluke's Resilient Sphere to protect my guy from trap damage because I couldn't disarm the thing then just cast a Dispel. Also I could force a lock open if my lock picking wasn't good enough i.e. high strength. I can't force locks in Pillars unless my mechanics is x level. I can only use y spell when in combat, just un-necessarily restrictive.

Still enjoying the game, would like to see them rethink some of the weird idiosyncrasy's, but otherwise a good game if a tad frustrating in areas.

mercy said:

Even they made real efforts for a better GUI, so can't blame them for not having the perfect solution for everybody.

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Did they?

Either I am missing something. They spent so big efforts to satisfy turn based approached players, so small to meet the requirements of real time.

The only efforts they seemed to consent were selection of party members and grouping through keyboard. That is all.

Where is the access to the quick slots from the keyboard? The lack of it makes tedious the use of potions or casting a simple spell.

What happened so they ended missing that obvious lack?
And yet, about the effort for party member selection...
I made the mistake of choosing the ranger class, that comes with an animal companion and it took less than 30 minutes to observe they did not even bother to tie the selection of the companion to a key and how it makes the all of it tedious when you want to issue inputs in real time.
It destroyed the opportunity of using short cuts to select party members as you are always switching from selection by portraits to selection by keys etc

This product had been in beta stage for six months and nobody could remark that the interface was lacking to meet real time requirements? Nobody to tell that maybe adding the possibilty to access the quick bar from the key board was a must? Issuing commands in real time is a pain at the moment when it could be smooth.

At this stage, it is unplayable for anyone willing to engage in a real time with pause experience. Simple actions are tedious by the lack of access from the keyboard.

If they gave their best to meet the demands of real time players, their best is far from top.

This game has the most likes in our Steam curation list yet (>100):
link

Silver said:

The game's got good writing and good potential especially regarding a sequel. Needs a patch or three to fix the combat, too fast and your guys go down too quick. Slow mode is what the normal combat speed needs to be. Very hard to control the battlefield with teleporting enemies and moving around can be difficult if your not careful. Engagement complicates things but I feel like they've almost got it working right in some situations but for other enemies it can quickly turn chaotic. I'm enjoying it but annoyed that wizard spells have odd restrictions against casting outside of combat.

The thing I enjoyed about Baldurs Gate is the way that your abilities allowed you to approach combat and non-combat situations in a variety of creative ways. I remember in bg1 I used Otiluke's Resilient Sphere to protect my guy from trap damage because I couldn't disarm the thing then just cast a Dispel. Also I could force a lock open if my lock picking wasn't good enough i.e. high strength. I can't force locks in Pillars unless my mechanics is x level. I can only use y spell when in combat, just un-necessarily restrictive.

Still enjoying the game, would like to see them rethink some of the weird idiosyncrasy's, but otherwise a good game if a tad frustrating in areas.

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Small chance this will be changed, JES did not like these things in BG so he changed them on purpose.